Random Cuts - Number 64

Following Roy Harper, conceptual continuity demands that we move directly from there to Led Zeppelin.

And, of course, when you are talking Zeppelin then sooner or later you’re going to be talking about a song that is simultaneously the most revered and reviled in rock music - the frequent winner of the polls for the best rock song of all time - and equally frequently voted as the song you most hate - and I’m going to feature it here in what many of you may think is a serious lapse of taste.

Well, it’s obviously Stairway to Heaven, innit?

But wait, this isn’t the standard version - I am not so familiar with Zeppelin’s official output to know whether this version has ever been officially released - I’ve got it on a bootleg called ‘Hairway to Steven‘, and it is said on that boot that “This is the first time the band played this song in full length. Recorded during rehearsals in early 1971“

I like this better than the official version. After the meandering hippy noodlings of Plant’s girly all that glitters is gold, words with two meanings, a tree by a brook, feelings you get when you look to the west etc etc etc, you get to the breakdown between that section and Page’s testosterone guitar histrionics and winding on down the road. Listen out at the breakdown for the superb drumming - huge cymbal crash and then archetypal pounding of the skins - turn it up for that alone. For all that I may sometimes sneer at this song, I love it really and this reminds me why.

This is Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

R.I.P Arthur C. Clarke

A Space Odyssey + 7

The carbon-based biped and science fiction writer, Sir Arthur Charles Clarke died today.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Dandy Dons Drub Dreadfully Dozy Diddies - Delightful !!

Random Cuts - Number 63

My correspondent Peter makes some remarks about the great Roy Harper and reminds me that Roy has been very sadly neglected on this blog, particularly as he is exactly the kind of bonkers, off-the-wall, barking mad, towering genius that is generally guaranteed hero status here (cf Zappa, Beefheart, Mark Smith, Lord Buckley, Ginsberg, MacDiarmid, Poe, Lovecraft, Dick, Milligan, Brian Wilson, et al).

Well, let me put that right forthwith.

This is the opening track on Roy’s 1971 album Stormcock

Stormcock is an album which everyone should own.

If you don’t have it, then you should have.

Full stop.

Not appearing on the track featured here, but performing elsewhere on the album is the guitarist S. Flavius Mercurius.

aka Jimmy Page

This being part of a long association between Roy and Led Zeppelin, which included a track on Led Zep 3 being called ‘Hats Off To Harper‘.

But this track is a pretty typical piece of Harper solo brilliance.

The troubador on acoustic guitar? It’s fairly limited, n’est-ce pas?

Wait till you hear Roy does with the form.

I had half thought of playing ‘Watford Gap’ from the 1977 LP ‘Bullinamingvase’, but I have to beware of the litigious tossers at the Watford Gap service station who objected to the lyrics in the song which criticised their food (”Watford Gap, Watford Gap / A plate of grease and a load of crap…“), and with the assistance of m’learned friends forced Harper under duress to drop it from future UK copies of the album.

OK this is the first appearance (the first of many I’ll be bound) by Roy Harper on this blog

Roy Harper - Hors d’Oeuvres

(the song, incidentally, gives its name to an excellent Harper fanzine)

The judge sits on his great assize
Twelve men wise with swollen thighs
Who never ever told no lies
Whose minds were ever such a size
Whose lives were ever such a prize
Whose brains bred answers just like flies
Whose answers stalked their thoughts like spies
Whose lead ball through the courtroom flies
To rip a hole clean between two eyes
That never ever wore disguise
And never ever saw blue skies
Who quickly lived now slowly dies
Who closed unopened otherwise
Well you can lead a horse to water
But you’re never gonna make him drink
And you can lead a man to slaughter
But you’re never gonna make him think
The critic rubs his tired arse
Scrapes his poor brains, strains and farts
And wields a pen that stops and starts
And thinks in terms of booze and tarts
And sits there playing with his parts
He says I’m much too crude and far too coarse
And he says this singer’s just a farce
He’s got no healing formulas
He’s got no cure-all for our scars
He’s got no bra-strap for our bras
And our sagging tits no longer hold a full house of hearts
And you know what? I don’t think this little song’s gonna make the charts
Well you can lead a horse to water
But you’re never gonna make him drink
And you can lead a man to slaughter
But you’re never gonna make him think